Not All Past is Legacy: Echoes of 1917–1923 in Contemporary East Central Europe

Abstract

The article discusses parallelisms between the social and political realities of East Central Europe around 1917–1923 and the current state of affairs. It starts with an analysis of the dynamic social relations in the final year of the Great War to follow with the question of their impact on politics and a short outline of the region’s history after 1918. While in terms of political and social reality there is little to invite comparison between these two periods under scrutiny, the language of politics and popular sentiments do. Most importantly, and similarly to East Central Europe in the interwar period, fear of a radical change (be it Bolshevism as in 1917–1923 or the cultural revolution) is the main tool of conservative mobilization which represents the sole actual danger to the existing social and political order.

Keywords

• independence
• moral economy
• political radicalism
• social change
• strike